In search of New lands
by Monoi
Summary: "He never wanted ties. No commitments, no barriers between himself and his goal. But what was his goal for all those years? To live, survive, fight, eat, fuck. What he had gained in the end?" Ten years after their separation, Mugen comes to terms with what happened in Fuu's life and in his own.
1. When my lover sneaks in to visit me

Hi everyone. I'm so embarassed cause this is My firts attempt to write in english. I have no beta reader so I guess I have made a lot of mistakes.

I am willing to accept any critics in this sense, and I hope to became better. And I will accept any volunteer for beta reading!

Thanks in advance to everyone who Will read this fic and will comment it.

So let's start with the fic.

* * *

 _When my lover sneaks in to visit me,_

 _That I wish the clouds would hide That light just a little_.

It all happened a warm May evening. The lights and noise of the street festival were entering from the open door on the road. The lanterns were hung on the trees and the street was full of stalls. Along the way to the temple, visitors flocked through the large red torii. Inside the tea house, crowded with pilgrims and travelers, the temperature was becoming unbearable. Fuu ran from table to table, taking orders and carrying trays.

It was her destiny. To be a waitress, to smile at everyone, to work hard for bringing home something to feed her children.

The three pregnancies had burdened her hips, and the sleepless nights painted wrinkles around her face. Soon her eyes were filled with that smile that had haunted more than a traveler, and more than a neighbor.

Suddenly, the curtain was pulled back on the door, letting in a stranger. He didn't dressed the red haori anymore, and his shaggy hair was cut short around his head, but the heart of Fuu jumped in her chest, recognizing him immediately. She held her breath, she opened her eyes wide open, searching for the reassuring presence of tattoos on his wrists that were strangely covered by high leather bracelets.

It was her destiny. A waitress, putting her heart at rest on the fact that he was not coming back, to return sixteen whenever the man slipped his head into his life. And as always, he gave her that crooked grin, a canine that shone almost between his parted lips, as he advanced in metal steps between the tables and he stared at her with that steely gaze that made her tremble every time.

Mugen sat down at a table, lying on the wooden bench. One leg over the other, a piece of straw between his teeth, he kept his eyes fixed on her. Without even going to pick up the order, Fuu turned to go into the kitchen and came out soon after carrying the sake and dango that had slammed in front of him, unceremoniously. Mugen smiled. Fuu was angry with him, as always. And that could only please him.

"Four years that you do not show," she said, crossing his arms over his chest and putting on a pout taken from her repertoire as a teenager.

"I had nothing else to do" was the reply of the vagrant.

Fuu bit his lip, not to give in outburst in front of everyone. And before him. Without saying anything, filling her lungs with air to push out slowly, she turned back to her work.

"Wait."

Mugen's hand, squeezed in a vice on her forearm, restrained her from going on. She turned abruptly towards his face, trying to incinerate him with a glance. But he supported her look with little effort, as the silence fell around them. Fuu knew exactly what he wanted. She knew that he would not leave until he had reached his goal.

Fuu gave way early, so as not to provoke too much uproar among the alarmed customers. She had taken a step toward him, whispering a few centimeters from his face. Her nostrils were invaded by his smell. She knew him for ten years, and in ten years that mixture of leather, salt, earth and sweat was not changed.

"At the place as last time. Do you remember where it is? "

Mugen nodded, his jaw clenched while his eyes pierced her from side to side.

Fuu knew that after midnight, she would rush off to the dark alley, where he was waiting. It was certainly not the first time she ran away from her life to spend some time with him, and then wake up one day alone, to return to work as a waitress and as a mother.

It did not matter if those moments would last a year or a night.

That was her destiny. To write a hasty note to Jin, asking him to take care of children, forget for a little 'what she had become, and open her legs for Mugen in some makeshift bed. To take what he was able to give and do not ask anything in return.

It was so dismal, she knew. But perhaps, she would be lucky again, enough to come out better than she had entered.


	2. I wish that the clouds would hide that l

"Well, What's wrong? Won't you come? "

Fuu hesitated, while Mugen dragged her toward the entrance of the inn.

"I don't think it's a good idea"

"Are you kidding me? Instead of going into the woods or in a haystack, I bring you in a real bed, and you don't want it? "

"I live her, you know it. If I go into this place, tomorrow the whole village will know that I slept with you. "

"So?"

"I'm not alone ... What I do is not just about me."

"Umph. That sucks ... I don't care. Let's go. "

"Mugen, no!"

In response, he wrapped his jacket around her, hiding her face.

"I spent money for this room, to bring you here. If I knew, I would have bought a bitch ... "

Reluctantly and humiliated, Fuu let herself be led by Mugen through the rooms of the inn, until they reached his room, and he had rolled away the cloak. Irritated by the smirk that was on his lips as he watched her, she turned, her back to him.

"Why did you not go with a prostitute, then?"

Immediately, Mugen's hands were resting on Fuu's hips, testing the texture of the skin under the yukata she used to work. After that first thrill, she felt immediately a second one, while the aforementioned hands slid upward, to touch her waist.

"Oh, the whores are all the same. None of them is a pain in the ass like you. "

Soon his movements became more frantic. His nose buried in her neck while brushing the fair skin that covered her jugular. His tanned hands loosened the obi's knot, and then the same hands get under the clothes.

"And they all have the same scent. Yours is different. "

Fuu wanted nothing more than feeling Mugen's hands on her. She had dreamed of them almost every night, fearing she could no longer feel the sensation of hot and rough hands gliding over her skin. For four long years. He had never been away from her for so long, and he groaned when a moan had come from her lips slightly open.

"And no bitch is so wet just because she sees me" he continued, licking her earlobe while the index and middle fingers of his right hand were tucked in the folds of her sex, making her jump.

Her legs had become soft and wheezing. Mugen went straight to the point, to reach the goal with minimal effort. Once we had the confirmation that Fuu wanted him as much as he wanted her, he brought her down on the futon.

As he undressed, kneeling between Fuu's open legs, Mugen took one moment to think. He began to ponder seriously what part of his body felt the urgency to sink into Fuu's sex. It could be his tongue, or cock, or his fingers ...

Fuck, he said, and threw himself on top of her without any hesitation. Why choose? His mouth was biting her lips, the hands back on her hips, when he slid into her, in that tight and wet hole, which was the same of the other whores. Yet, Fuu was different.

The moaning that accompanied his every thrust were different, especially when she articulated the two syllables of his name, and he was beginning to not understand anything.

The arms that encircled his chest were different, sometimes squeezing strong, as if to bury him in her flesh, sometimes scratching his back. The lips that touched his face were different, placing light kisses over all of his scars. Different was the tongue that was playing with his, different were the hands that sometimes sank into his hair and sometimes clung to his biceps, or his ass.

No bitch indulged almost helpless under him, after he had made her come, looking bleary-eyed and flushed face, making him want to fuck her even more savagely.

No whore held him thight, as he was inside her, and especially after, when he was so exhausted and remained lying on her, with his eyes closed, breathing her scent while Fuu's hands gently stroked the back of his head.

No bitch fell asleep in that way, in his arms, and made him feel that strange feeling that led him to lie down next to her, cover her with the blanket, put his arm around her waist.

And he never, with no whore had felt so safe to fall asleep


	3. The eight month is fast approaching

The sun was high in the sky. As always, he woke up alone, the futon next to him empty. The imprint of Fuu's body was still warm. Mugen was lying over there, filling his lungs with the fragrance that still lingered. It was always this situation in the morning. He woke up alone, looking around, trying to recover the traces of the passage of her, and began to fantasize.

Not that it was a habit that he particularly liked. He does not ever fantasized, but the feeling of pleasure coursing through his awakening body led him to prolong artificially that feelings.

And then that morning, Mugen decided to stay in bed, eyes closed, and imagined that Fuu had just got up to make one of those endless things that women always do, and that she would be back soon, under the covers with him .

With eyes closed, he felt the sullen look of Fuu, her hair disheveled and loose over her bare shoulders, her skin so clear and so different from his own.

With eyes closed, he saw her red lips, the signs of kisses and bites on the skin over the her shoulders and breasts, her white belly and skinny legs that wrapped themselves around him.

With eyes closed, Mugen thought that perhaps it would be worth it to endure the cries, reproaches and claims of Fuu, if that could be the reward waiting for him each morning.

With a flash, he got out of bed before the thought of her would cause a morning erection. He had fuck, he had sleep, his breakfast was waiting for him at the inn, what was missing from his list of inevitable pleasures?

Boozing and fighting. For those would be enough to put his nose out of the inn, and maybe be careful not to run into Fuu, who certainly would have not been pleased about his favorite pastimes.

After breakfast, he walked to that part of town where he knew there was Jin's dojo. In fact, Fuu had never said that, a few steps from where she lived, Jin was also established. Mugen knew it because four years before he met Jin in the streets of the village.

The ronin had stared at him with his usual blank look, but had carefully avoided naming Fuu during the dialogue they had. Mugen doesn't really wanted to explain what he was doing in that place, so he opted to bypass with his usual nonchalance the entire existence of their old companion.

That morning, with Mugen's satisfaction, his old companion in adventure fought back with him in a long and grueling battle, within his dojo. It was so spacious that Mugen couldn't destroy many ornaments, but the ferocity of his fighting did not go unnoticed to the disciples of Jin, who all followed with amazement and a certain horror the moves of the vagrant.

A couple of days later, the sun rose over the town ready for a new day of festivities. In the room he had rented, Mugen was awake for a while. Finally he managed to wake before Fuu, and began to observe the naked body of her still sleeping alongside. It was no longer the body of the teenagers who had asked him one night together, ten years earlier, as a parting gift before going separate ways, yet he could not take his eyes off her.

At some point, he lifted the covers and began to examine centimeter by centimeter that white skin, soft in places and in others thickened, until a scar that crossed her belly caught his attention. In the last nights spent together he could not help but notice it. Their last meeting had been four years earlier, and he was sure there wasn't.

Its index touched the silver scar. It was a clean cut, well-healed. It was not a butcher job. Suddenly, Mugen felt the need to know something more about Fuu's life, although for ten years he had never asked any questions, terrified that she might make some.

He knew there was someone in her life. He had understood because she was acting cautiously, always meeting him at night in isolated places. And that thought made him angry, but he could not do anything. That someone had to be a smart person, if he could bear to live with her. Mugen had resisted several times a desire to kill that someone who had the life of Fuu, thinking that the end was just as well.

It was better for Fuu live safely away from him and away from all the danger that were his life. He could not bear to see her again tied to a cross, beaten, wounded, as had happened in the past.

Eventually, Mugen agreed that everything was fine as it was. He kept being a vagrant, finding work as a mercenary, a bodyguard or a murder, and when the desire to get lost inside FUu's body became unbearable, he went to take her. The past four years had been long. He embarked on a ship that had crossed the oceans, turning around the world. He had managed to save quite a bit, and just free from the assignment, instead of spending all in women and sake, he rushed in that little village.

Fuu's eyes opened slowly, surprised not to hear the voices of her children around her. Usually at that hour little Seizou was already attached to Yoko's, who at seven years old was already a reliable big sister, and the two went around the house chatting together. Instead of the smiling faces of her children, she saw MUgen's tanned arm stretched towards her, while his index finger touched the scar on her belly.

"And how did you get that?" He asked.

Fuu did not answer, but an instinctive sigh escaped her lips as she turned from the covers, giving him her back.

"It's a nasty wound. You almost died. "He insisted.

"Yup."

His words went out into the room. Mugen grabbed forcefully her chin, forcing Fuu to turn to him, staring straight at her.

"What happened to you?"

"I had a difficult birth."

Fuu's eyes moved toward the window before continuing.

"I lost a lot of blood. Even the baby almost died. "

Mugen's hand loosened his grip, retreating instinctively from her body.

"We survived, that's what counts." she concluded after rising to take the yukata. Mugen watched her move around the room, as she picked up her clothes.

"So you have a child ..."

"I have three children, Mugen. They now will be wondering what happened to me. I have to go."


	4. And yet I have nothing to wear

_The eighth month is fast approaching,_

 _and yet I have nothing to wear_

* * *

He knew it. Mugen knew better than to ask. It was unbearable the idea that Fuu's life had gone on without him so much as to have given birth to children. Worse. It was reality. The other man, the one who had Fuu in bed every night and every morning, he had made her pregnant three times and made her give birth to his children.

That bastard. He had to see him in the eye, that son of a bitch who had done this to the only woman had something really counted for Mugen.

That morning, in his wandering aimlessly, Mugen came near Jin's dojo. A group of three children, two boys and a girl, were playing with some colored pebbles in front of a well. Mugen stopped to watch them, with the distinct feeling that they were Fuu's children. The baby girl was in fact identical to the mother, her hair the same color, big doe eyes and lips pursed in a pout that he knew so well. Then a runt of a few years, his dirty hands clunging to his sister's dress. He was small and plump, and even if Mugen could not see his face clearly, his hair was the same color of his sister.

Mugen's blood began to freeze in his veins when he saw the other boy, slightly older than the girl. He not looked much like the other two, except for the clear skin. His thin face - despite the still childish features, his straight and black hair tied in a ponytail at the nape, the shape of his eyes. The paternity of the child was screaming loudly not only in his appearance, but even in the measured manners and in the expressions on his young face.

As if proof were needed, a voice Mugen knew all too well echoed in the air.

"Enshirou! It's time to start training. "

"I'm ready, father!" THe boy promptly responded, leaving the two siblings alone in the courtyard.

Mugen turned his back to the picture of family life and started walking along the road. Anger welled up. As always, as in the beginning, Jin had everything, and Mugen nothing. Fuu had always felt admiration, esteem and love for the ronin, and nothing for him. Mugen was very aware of the the risks she ran every time to spend nights with him, and he thought he counted something for her, ten years before, when at the end of that first night together he had seen her virgin blood.

But no. What was he, for Fuu? An animal mounts? Good only for the bed but not to spend their lives together? Never once she had asked him to stay with her.

It did not matter that the picture he had just witnessed was the one from which he had always escaped. He had never wanted ties. No commitments, no obstacles between him and his goal. But what had been his goal all these years? Live, survive, fight, eat, fuck. What had he gained in the end?

That night, Mugen possessed Fuu in the most savage way, several times. Every time he came into her, he grunted like an animal at every thrusts of his hips. Perhaps he had also hurt her. Several times Fuu's doe eyes had filled with tears.

Later, as the moonlight rested on the white skin of the sleeping form of Fuu, Mugen had asked himself for what absurd reason she was there, with him, instead of going back, to her happy life with Jin and their children. In fact, the most absurd thing of all was that she wanted more of him, after all those years when he had left, since in any case had Jin at her side.

The doubt arose suddenly inside Mugen's mind: maybe Fuu was not so happy. Almost against his will, his fingers began to strike Fuu's skin, following the mark left by his teeth until he reached her belly, to that horrible scar that made him shudder at the thought he almost lost her.

He did not know if after that scar, her body could give birth to another brat, but in that moment Mugen desired with all his heart to be able to impregnate Fuu with his own seed.


	5. I want to dress up, brother

The weeks followed one another, and Fuu realized that she could no longer continue her double life. Mugen did not seem to want to leave, and it had begun to worry her. If on one hand she was tired of having to put her children aside to stay with him every night, on the other she did not think she could spend all that time with him.

But what worried her most was the fact that Mugen, after more than a month of nights at the inn, did not seem to have run out of money. He had told her that she had saved a lot in the last four years, and she wanted to believe him desperately, but the feeling that he got into trouble did not leave her.

Far from finding a solution to her personal dilemma, she continued in his double life as a mother and lover. Until one day fate resolved the question for her: Fuu fell ill, and for the first time in more than a month, she did not come to the appointment with him.

She wondered more than once how he would take it. She wondered if he was offended, or angry. Perhaps he had already left, not even finding her in the teahouse she was working for. What she did not know was that Mugen went to Jin's dojo, provoking a certain clamor among the students, who still wondered who was that stranger so strong as to be able not to be beat by their teacher.

Mugen aske Jin where Fuu was. Raising his eyebrow, the ronin called his own son, the boys called Enshirou and another pair of brats.

"Take this man to Fuu-san."

"Yes, master!" The boys answered, their eyes full of terror of finding themselves alone with that beast, even though there was a good deal of admiration and curiosity.

In a very bad mood, the pirate followed the brats to a small house not far away, in front of which the two minor children of Fuu were playing, whom Mugen immediately recognized. They both stopped playing and looked up at the stranger who had appeared in front of their house, while Jin's students resumed their way to the dojo.

Mugen stared at the girl, who did not seem particularly frightened by his presence, but rather extremely intrigued.

A shrill voice sad: "Hallo Ren!". Mugen looked at the baby who greeted him as if nothing had happened.

His sister told him: "He's not Ren! Don't you see? He's a man!" And she laughed at the child's mistake.

Instead, Mugen had stared at the brat's eyes. He was invaded by a strange sensation. That child did not resemble Jin and his older brother at all, yet he had something very familiar, even if he could not say what.

"Where is your mother?"

"She's inside. She's ill."

"Is she sick? What the hell does she have? "

"Stomach ache. She's in bed since yesterday. "

"Maybe she had eaten too much. That greedy little bitch. "

"Don't you dare talk like that about my mother!" An angry voice shouted behind him. Mugen turned, irritated, just to see a kid wearing Jin's dojo practitioners' dress. Evidently, the brat had not come back with his companions and was left to see what he wanted from his mother.

As soon as Mugen's gaze fell on his face, a strange chill ran through his back.

THe boy wasn't Enshirou. Everything in that skinny and tanned boy, screamed hard at the deepest part of Mugen. From the gray eyes that stared at him full of rancor, to the ruffled black hair, to the wild animal posture ready to shoot. While Mugen had been watching the little boy in front of him speechlessly, the girl ran into the house to call her mother.

On the other hand, the baby had ended up hugging the boy's knees, singing happily "Ren! Oniichan!" while the older brother stretched his arm over his shoulder with a protective gesture.

"What do you want from my mother?" The boy had growled at his address.

Mugen had not answered. He tried in vain to make his brain work, but the vision of a younger version of himself, calling Fuu "mother", had swept away all reasoning from his mind. For the first time in his life, Mugen was in shock.

"What the fuck do you want from my mother I told you!"


	6. Will you lend me just one sleeve?

"Ren! Don't talk like that... to ..."

Fuu's voice died in her throat, and she leaned against the door of the house. She was facing a scene that she would never have thought to see in her life. Facing each other, Mugen and Ren exchanged the same pout, both aware that their incredible physical resemblance was no accident.

The vomit suddenly assailed her. Mugen saw only the pallor of her face as she put her hand to her mouth, and then a whirlwind of cloth enveloped Fuu who fell to the ground, badly supported by the child.

Ren tried to snap to his mother, but that stranger had already taken her, holding her firmly in the armpits with one arm, while with his free hand he held her forehead. Between tears and agitation, Fuu vomited something like bile on the door, supported by Mugen.

Dumbfounded by the state in which his mother was reduced, Ren was left with nothing to do but pick up Seizou, who had burst into tears.

"I'm going to call Jin ojisan," he told the stranger who was looking after his mother.

"No." It had been the dry answer. "Let's bring her in."

Ten minutes later, Mugen sat at Fuu's bedside. she was so weak that she had fallen asleep. Sitting on the ground, his back against the wall, he watched Fuu's chest rise and fall rhythmically. All they needed was for her to get sick, he thought.

He looked up at the boy kneeling in front of him, on the other side of Fuu's bedside. The little boy supported his gaze with a certain aggressiveness, and Mugen couldn't help but feel secretly pleased with that. The boy seemed very awake, and on the defensive.

He tried to reflect on the implications of this discovery. In the night they had spent together before parting, Fuu had become pregnant with him, clearly. Obviously, she couldn't tell him. But why some years later, when he had found her working in the surroundings of Kyoto, she had not told him anything? Perhaps she feared he would not believe her?

Why had she let herself be swept without a complaint, holding him tight to herself without saying anything? For what absurd reason had she never revealed that secret to him? In ten long years? Maybe it was because in the meantime she had found Jin and got in with him?

Pretending nothing, Mugen stared at the boy and started the first question.

"Where is your father?"

The brat's jaw tightened, and a look of hatred reached him. Mugen laughed inside himself. The bpy was clearly pissed.

The boy answered dryly, "He's dead." A gleam of defiance crossed his eyes as he lifted his chin to the man. Mugen was happy with the answer.

It meant that Jin's role in Fuu's life was not that of the father of her child. His eyes focused on the boy, Mugen looked at him again. In his mind, he was still Fuu's son, although it was now clear as the sun that, well, yes, the boy was his son. The son he had sown inside Fuu's belly in one night. He would never have thought that the aggressive look of a boy with his own face would have made him feel a feeling so similar to pride. His son.

"When did your father die?" He asked, treading on the word "father" to irritate the boy. Mugen almost thought to hear the boy's thoughts, something like "You're my father, asshole".

"He died before Seizou was born."

Mugen directed his gaze to the smallest brat. His father was dead, and he had almost killed Fuu... However, the strange feeling he had felt before did not go away. Mugen watched him carefully. In spite of the fair complexion, and the Fuu's brown hair, the little one sported a pair of grayish eyes and disordered eyebrows. The shape of his forehead denounced a certain resemblance to his elder brother. Was it possible? Doubt assaulted Mugen. Maybe even the smallest brat had been his son?

"How old is the brat?" He asked the older boy.

"He did three years in the spring," his son answered dryly, without taking his eyes off him.

The counts came back, Mugen thought, looking at the baby. There was a high probability that the brat had been conceived the last time they had seen each other, before he left for the ocean.

"And you?" He asked again, turning his gaze to the girl, kneeling among her brothers.

"I am seven years old!" The little girl replied, with a voice so petulant to give the shivers: a small Fuu in all respects. Mugen looked at her closely, his face frowning. Maybe this was not his, he thought, maybe she was really another man's daughter, but he couldn't help remembering the nights spent in Kyoto, almost eight years ago, with the mother of that little girl standing in front of him.

"What was your father's name?" He asked, to get rid of his last doubts.

"Kasumi Seizou." The boy replied at full speed, "like my brother who was born after his death."

At that moment, Mugen smiled at the boy, that was indisputably his son. He had inherited even Mugen's same ease in lying.

At that moment, a soft moan signaled the awakening of Fuu. "Water" she asked in a whisper, and the boy had approached her with a glass. Without thinking too much about it, Mugen supported Fuu's head and shoulders as she drank a few scant gulps.

"How are you mommy?" the girl asked her with eyes wide open.

"A little better, Yoko." She replied.

Ren, Yoko and Seizou. Ten, seven and three years. Fuu's children. His children. And she never told him anything.

"Ren, go to Shino-san to ask if she can welcome Yoko and Seizou for lunch today. You will go back to the dojo now, of course."

"But ..." the boy tried to object to her.

"Nothing but. Do what I tell you."

"And who is he?" The girl asked, pointing to Mugen with a raised finger.

"He is an old friend of mommy. He will help me, but you already know that I am usually much better in the afternoon, so don't worry about me."

"But ..." the boy tried again.

"Go." Fuu concluded.

The three brats escaped from the room, and from the house, without insisting, even though the elder, before leaving, sent Mugen a look of rancor.


End file.
